


The Ice

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:38:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2305100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has been taken safely, but there are some things he still wants for, and some memories that still cling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice

"What are you?" The English comes from his mouth stiffly, sharply. It is discomfiting, to speak without being spoken to, but he wants to.

_Want._ When was the last time he felt want? He is not programmed to want, and he is not programmed for curiosity, and yet both of them are there. But he was told to go away for a time, and now he is away, and this one is  _foreign._

She turns to look at him, and her hair is golden, strung of silken strands. It is  _fake_ , he thinks with a vicious certainty. It's not real. 

"Pardon?" She asks, raising an eyebrow. English, upper parts of London. That accent is  _not_ fake, but the voice is. Alien? He does not know. But he is curious.

"What are you?" He repeats, in the exact same tone, with the exact same intonation. He wears jeans and a shirt, his hair tied back - the shirt is long-sleeved to cover his arms. People comment too much on the left one. She tilts her head and stares at him, her expression interested: it can be dangerous when people are interested in him, but this one is not dangerous.

Not yet.

She is not dangerous, but she is fake, and he is curious.

"A woman." She says.

"Tell me the truth." The words are a demand: he should not demand things. He is not permitted to, usually. It is not his place. 

"A man." She says.

"The  _truth._ " He repeats again, because that's fake too. He does not know how he knows, but he  _does._ She smiles at him, and her golden curls become black as onyx, slicked back. Her cheekbones change, her skin pales, her eyes change in their size, and her lips fade to a lessened pink. 

"I am Loki." He says, and on the Winter Solider's face a frown appears, and his brow furrows. Loki. Brother of Thor, God in the mythologies, and yet-

It does not sound like a lie: it is the truth. Loki is looking at him appraisingly -  _he_ is curious too, but he is no doubt allowed to feel curiosity. He probably feels want all day long.

The Winter Soldier runs an internalized check: he is impassive. His curiosity and interest are muted, latent. He barely feels anything at all.

"What are  _you_ ?" Loki asks, and the Winter Soldier sees a glint of silver in his mouth and grasps the other's jaw to examine the metal there. He is interested. He presses his finger and thumb to the meat of the other's cheeks, forcing him to open his mouth, but Loki does not need forcing - he parts his lips and lets his jaw move.

It is a piercing. A green gem shines in its centre.

_Want._ Again. The Winter Soldier presses his own tongue to the roof of his mouth, tilting his head. He imagines what it would feel like, metal in his mouth.

"I am curious." He says, and Loki laughs at him - when he laughs, the piercing shakes in the flesh, and he can feel the vibrations through the metal of his arm. His gloves are fingerless, and the metal of his fingers is probably cold on the other's face, but he does not complain.

"What do people call you?" Loki amends. He is clever. Clever people are bad. That is what the Winter Soldier's programming dictates - in truth, he should talk to no one. He should have waited in silence for his handlers to collect him. 

He feels something twist in his stomach: they will take him to Pierce tonight, for him to give his mission report. The Winter Soldier retracts his metal hand and adjusts his glove. He ignores the question, and Loki's hand slides across the table, curling around his wrist - the one that is still flesh.

It is cold. As he stares at it, the pale skin darkens to a light blue, and it feels colder. Ice forms on his skin as surely as frost forms on the grass in winter, and the Winter Soldier stares. 

Not man. Not woman. Loki. 

"You are different." Loki says. The Winter Soldier sees in the mirror of the bar that his handlers have arrived, and he stands. 

"Yes." He agrees, and he walks away so he can be duplicitous, so that he can pretend to his handlers that he waited alone. Disobeying is bad, but punishment is worse.

The man-who-is-not-a-man - Loki - watches him as he leaves. The Winter Soldier feels an emotion that is familiar.

_Satisfaction._

\---

"Who is that?" Bucky asks. He is sprawled on Tony's couch because that is how Tony sits on this couch, and it is more challenging ( _more fun_ ) to emulate Tony's ways than it is to emulate Bruce Banner's. Steve and Natasha are on a mission: that is why he is here. He dislikes his apartment, and he dislikes SHIELD, and he has no wish to be alone.

Tony Stark always lets him in. 

"Huh?" Bruce and Tony both look up to the wall: on the screen is a photograph. No. It is generated, this image. The face is familiar, matching a memory, except for one glaring omission.

"That's Loki of Asgard." Bruce says, after a pause. "They're from another realm. Thor is one of the Avengers."

"It's from different accounts - Thor confirmed that's how he looks at home, too. Bruce thinks he's pretty." Tony says, tapping his shoulder, and Bruce Banner snorts, shaking his head with disapproval. Given the choice, Bucky would pick Bruce Banner over Tony Stark. He is gentler, warmer.

Bucky appreciates his self-control.

"It's wrong." Bucky says, and he wonders if he is speaking incorrectly, inhumanly. Sometimes, Steve looks at him with an expression of discomfort obvious on his face - this is because Bucky is not who Bucky once was. He is the Winter Soldier who has learned to warm: he is not James Barnes.

Both of them are looking at him, frowns on their faces.

"Wrong? We met the guy, Buck - that's how he looks." Tony says. 

"It is wrong." Bucky repeats, and he stands, moving forwards, and he points at the open mouth, because Loki is smiling. "There should be a piercing here. It is silver, and round, and in the middle there is a green gemstone. An emerald, maybe." 

Bruce and Tony share a look: it is never good when they exchange looks in front of Bucky, or behind Bucky, or generally in his proximity. They all do that. It means disapproval, or uncertainty, or  _Bucky is being wrong._

"When did you meet Loki?" Bruce asks, slowly, after a short pause. 

"Yeah, was it on a mission, with HYDRA, was it way back when?" Bucky looks between them both, and then he shrugs. He does not know the dates - the dates, the missions, were cleared away. Loki's face wasn't cleared away because they didn't know to look for him. 

"A mission." He says, when Tony stares at him with the urgent expectation he sees on Tony's face whenever Pepper teases him.

He likes Pepper.

"What mission?" Bucky shrugs. Tony's nostrils flare and his lip curls, and immediately, instinctively, Bucky steps back, his eyes widening and his hands, metal and flesh, spreading wide in a calming motion.

"Tony." Bruce says quietly, and Tony huffs out a breath. The snarl disappears, and Bucky relaxes. Yes, Bucky thinks, gratefully. He appreciates Bruce's self-control.

\---

"You okay there, Bucky?" He looks up, and he regards the other man for a few moments.

"Hello, Rhodey." He says, after a short pause. Bucky is called James too. That is not the reason Bucky does not wish to be called James - perhaps the reason is because Steve calls him Bucky. There is an  _inkling_ when he is called Bucky.

He strains for a second, but he remembers nothing except Steve saying "Bucky" on that crucial mission. Rhodey is looking at him with some evident concern, so Bucky says, "I'm fine." Rhodey nods, and he pats his shoulder - the shoulder that does not join to metal - and passes him by.

Bucky's eyes alight on Clint as he enters the SHIELD building, and he stands, but then he hesitates. He does not see the familiar pieces in the other man's ear, which means Clint is not wearing his hearing aids.

Bucky cannot speak sign language. 

"I can read your lips." Clint says, because he can read people. Bucky smiles at him, and Clint grins right back. There is dog hair on Clint's chest, and Bucky raises an eyebrow (he has lifted this expression, impeccably, from Natasha's catalogue of faces) as he examines it. "Shut up." Clint says, but it is affectionate, warm, and Bucky laughs.

He laughs, now. 

Bucky is curious. He wants to  _ask_ , but he does not want Clint to stop smiling. He hesitates, silent, for a few long moments. Clint frowns at him, absently plucking sandy hairs from his shirt.

"What is it?" Bucky is silent for a second. Curiosity is bad. Want is bad.

"Nothing." He lies, and he fakes a laugh, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. "Just wondering what having a dog is like."

"Oh. Well, he's an  _asshole,_ really-" Bucky lets Clint talk about the dog, and makes no complaint at all. He is not certain he likes dogs - he remembers sniffer dogs, attack dogs. One woman had a chihuahua, and that had been the most vicious animal he'd ever encountered. The idea of being around dogs makes his chest tight, makes him want to run away.

He worries that Clint will try and introduce Lucky to him if he continues to feign his interest, but lacks the drive to say he does not want to be around dogs. No. Not drive.

Tony and Natasha would say "balls". 

Bucky does not have the balls, just as he doesn't have the balls to ask about Loki. Bucky retreats, soon enough, and he plays Battleships with Steve. Steve is bad at Battleships, but Bucky enjoys it - it is more enjoyable than chess, and the other games require they have more players than two.

"What did you think of Thor?" Bucky asks strategically as he sinks a dinghy. 

"He's a good man." Steve says lightly, warmly. "I liked him - funny guy. Gentle, but massive. So different to his brother." Bucky looks up meekly, uncertainly, from his plastic ships as Steve says D4 - miss.

"Loki is different?"

"Completely." Steve says firmly. "He's power hungry, cruel, thoughtless-" He cuts himself off, shaking his head with a small scowl on his face. 

"Oh." Bucky says, and he nods. "E5." He says, and Steve curses sharply.

\---

" _You're not subtle, you know_ ." She speaks in Russian so that Steve cannot understand if he dips his head into the room. He is cooking with Sam, now, and while Bucky has learned he can rely on them to distract each other thoroughly (he has walked in on such distractions once or twice now), Steve retains constant worry where Bucky is concerned.

" _Don't know what you mean."_ Bucky says, and she scoffs, putting her feet in his lap and letting them rest there. 

" _Loki._ "

" _What's Loki?"_ She scoffs at him, kicking his thigh with her heel, and he does not laugh, but he offers a smile in the hope that she stops. 

" _He's dead."_ She says, and he blinks at her. " _Jane Foster said so to me. He died protecting his brother, if that makes any difference."_ Bucky feels- Disappointment. He lets out a quiet sigh without intending to. He feels sad, for some reason. She looks at him for a few moments. " _What did he say to you, to get your interest?"_

_"He was just there."_ Bucky says, and although it doesn't feel like an answer, she accepts it as one. She leans closer, and she presses her lips firmly to the side of his jaw - it is affection. He finds that he enjoys affection when it is physical like this, from her, from Steve, from Pepper Potts. The others are less close in their touches, but they are still good.

\---

It is night time when Bucky meets Loki of Jotunheim again. He slides across from Bucky in the restaurant's booth as if they were scheduled for a date together, and Bucky looks at him, recognizing him despite the fact that his hair is a thick, curling blond, and his face is rounder.

"Whose face is that?" He asks.

"My mother's." Loki says. His face morphs: his own eyes come to the surface, his eyes and his lips, and his face lengthens. He keeps the hair and nose and ears that belong to his mother, but when Bucky looks, he can see the glint of green and silver in his mouth. "James Buchanan Barnes." 

"Bucky." He corrects. "When you met me, I was the Winter Soldier." He does not call for help. He does not want to call Natasha or Steve or Clint or Sam or Tony, or any of them. He  _wants._ "If I was still him, you would try to own me." He says this because he knows, and Loki tilts his head.

"What makes you think I don't wish to own you now?"

"I don't." Bucky says. "Doesn't matter if you want to, because you won't."

"Oh, won't I?" Loki asks, and Bucky puts his foot forwards, presses the base of his boot between Loki's legs, against his crotch. The table cloth hides the motion, and Loki suppresses his own choked sound. 

"No." Bucky says.

"I will not play  _submissive_ for you, b-"

"I don't want you to." Bucky interrupts him. "I'm just catching your attention." He speaks innocently, the way Steve would if he was doing this - except that Steve wouldn't do this. Steve has self-control.

Bucky- Bucky  _does_ have self-control. But not right now. 

Loki is confused. Good. It is good that he is unsure, because Bucky has never felt more unsure in his life. His hand grasps at Bucky's, and it is good - his hand is cold, and Bucky stiffens, waiting, waiting. There is a pause. Then, frost bursts from Loki's fingers and encases Bucky's wrist in sweet, icy cold, and Bucky lets out a soft, choked noise.

Yes.  _This_ is what he wants. 

Loki is staring at him, his expression intense.

"I could just take you." He says, and his voice teeters. It is a statement, but it is not said with surety. 

"You will." Bucky says, and he thinks of taking Loki in his mouth - he has not done that for  _so_ long. Will he be as cold, Bucky thinks, when Bucky has him under his hands and his tongue? 

"I could just take you  _away._ " Loki says. 

"You won't." Loki gazes at him, and his look is a challenge. Bucky shouldn't have him at all, but he  _will_ , and he  _wants._ He is no longer the Winter Soldier, and yet he wants for winter - Loki is just the touch he needs. "You will have me one night." Bucky says. "And that will be enough." Loki's stare changes; he is smirking, and the look is cunning.

"And if it is not?"

"Then you will take me nowhere." The confusion is barely visible; a crinkle of black eyebrows that have begun to darken, slowly, subtlety, into his own black as opposed to his mother's gold. "I will go readily."

"Good." Loki murmurs, and they stand together. "Good." He says again.

Bucky grins at him, and the expression is vicious, and cold.

The ice is what he needs, for now. 

  
  


 


End file.
